Mayday, mayday! May is here, but barely yet the monsoon. Too much to do, and too much heat to do it in.
Poison returns for the weekend. Though sold out twice before, Polymarket isn’t making a book on the odds of this time. Memories of Yaalpanam unveils at Barefoot. Is it kitsch? Probably. Does it work? You tell us. They also have thirty short films in thirty minutes — a device of some affectation, but a pleasing one. Do Not Laugh is a winner.
On Saturday, you snooze, you lose. Just after sunrise, a tree walk with Ruk Rakaganno at Victoria Park. Take a break from the blasted heat with a nap in the afternoon, then venture out to a tour of the Bellanwila Vihara’s dioramic murals. At night, CoCA screens “the worst movie ever made,” rescuing you after with the balm of Chinthaka’s vinyl.
Sunday is colourful; paint watercolour mandalas in the morning, or join Urban Sketchers as they wander through Ape Gama. Sip and paint a tote bag at Kai. And if that isn’t enough eat, pray, love, try crochet therapy instead.
On Wednesday, the Zonta Club’s idea of feminism, The Devil Wears Prada 2. Thursday is for the big boys on how to get your startup selling overseas. Or ditch the crypto whales, for a film on the real ones. Friday is for the folks at the Tuesday book club (no, we don’t get it either). They’re reliving their O Level days with Northanger Abbey. Saregama with the Tamil jazz collective as they pass through Sri Lanka on their South Asia tour.
Want to get a head start on the next weekend? News for the shower singers – workshop players is holding auditions for the Hunchback of Notre Dame. A Jaffna ‘experience’. It’s “not a tour” but a “gathering”. Good for the ‘travellers, not tourists’ among us I suppose. And Radicle’s exhibition tells us to take a chill pill, presumably by caffeinating us to death.
What to read
The present sits on the past, and on Geoffrey Bawa’s chairs. A May Day ode to Sri Lanka’s trade union leaders.
Is Sinhalese nationalism dying, last week’s Examination mused. Muragala pitches in with their take. Some fragments of a phd thesis analysing Buddhist thinking in modern Sri Lankan literature.
Our age demographics continue to deteriorate. Four million elders are ageing without income security. Colombo Urban Labs lights the beacons on Sri Lanka’s polycrisis.
Do we really need a walk for peace, asks Ruki Fernando? The dog is cute. Maybe next time instead of the clergy, we should have the kennel club organise it.
Meanwhile, the Colombo Poets collective has gone mobile, launching their new app this week.
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